If you ever change money with Mallams in Nigeria, you will learn to love Arewa and Islam. The first day you go to a place, like Zone 4, Abuja, or Broad Street, Lagos, and make a choice on who to change your Dollars and Pounds for Naira with, they mark you as that person’s customer.
Let us say the fellow’s name is Seidu.
The next time you go, and Seidu is not there, none of the other money changers will try to steal you from Seidu. They will tell you to wait for Seidu. Then they will call him on the phone. If you can’t wait, then they will ask you to go.
If you choose to wait, Seidu’s colleagues will take you to their own offices and buy you Coke and Suya at their own expense. I am not exaggerating. I have witnessed it from my teenage years to my adulthood.
Alternatively, Seidu can ask them to trade with you with their money, and he will repay them and collect his profit when he returns.
But one thing they will NEVER do is try to steal Seidu’s customers. Their love for each other is greater than the love between Reuben Abati and his new wife.
A core Northern Muslim can steal government money. But if you give him your own money to keep for you and you die, he will go to the ends of the Earth to return it to your heirs or your family. Their level of honesty is second to none.
And you may not appreciate this until you go to Alaba Market or Ladipo. As soon as you enter the market, a babel of voices start fighting each other to get you. There is nothing like a customer or brother. And forget about coordination and organisation. It is an aggressive case of all man for himself.
A trader who knows that you bought from the other shop the last time will tell you that that shop is not as good as his own. He will give you a better deal.
That sense of camaraderie that we see anywhere Arewa traders are, whether at Alabo Rago, or Katangua Market, Lagos, is not there in much of Southern Nigeria. And if we can learn it from core Muslim Northerners, Nigeria would be a much better place to live in.
Cooperation and community always yield better results than confrontation and disunity. That is why two of the three wealthiest Nigerians are Arewa.
Oya, insult!
#TableShaker
